Israel Can Win, If Obama doesn’t save Hamas
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3185241/posts
http://freebeacon.com/columns/israel-can-win/
Secretary Kerry arrived in Cairo earlier this week. No one wanted him there. Egypt’s ruler, General Sisi, has no interest in saving Hamas through international diplomacy: The Muslim Brotherhood is his mortal enemy. Kerry then went from Cairo to Jerusalem, where he met with U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon, who flew to the meeting on a plane chartered by Qatar, Hamas’ primary source of cash. Kerry also met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is too gracious to tell the secretary to go back to Boston. (Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has said publicly what the Israeli government will not: Kerry is an unwelcome guest.) Next up was Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, who honored Kerry’s presence by endorsing Hamas’s call for a “Day of Rage” in the West Bank. Kerry “will soon decide if Hamas and Israel are willing to agree on a Gaza ceasefire,” Reuters says.
Who wants a ceasefire? Qatar. The sheikhs who bankroll the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Jazeera, and Hamas would see their status rise. A ceasefire would lend credence to the theory that the traditional Sunni powers—Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia—have been eclipsed both by Shiite Iran and by Brotherhood-friendly Sunnis in the Gulf and Turkey. Having lost Egypt and possibly Gaza, the Brotherhood finds itself on the precipice. A Qatari-backed ceasefire that does not include disarmament of Hamas would pull the movement back from the abyss.
— — —
Now, the article does have the headline mentioning Obama, but the real key to this article doesn’t have to do with Obama — it has to do with these two big Muslim blocks described here. Obama and Kerry are simply “fish who are out of water” and are useful idiots ... not much more.
This is really a “game” (so to speak) being played on the “game board” of Israel and Hamas, with Hamas being the central “played piece” — by these two big Muslim blocks described here.
Why do you make this nonsense up?
Egypt has maintained flights to Israel —
even as Obama’s FAA boycotted the Jewish state
and even as Obama FUND Hamas directly and indirectly.
Behind the lines: Hamas desperately seeking relevance [Israel]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3185239/posts
http://www.jpost.com/Features/Front-Lines/Behind-the-lines-Desperately-seeking-relevance-368838
Hamas is not an isolated player. It is part of a Muslim Brotherhood regional alliance bankrolled by the Emirate of Qatar.
The last year has not been good for this alliance. In 2011-12, they were riding high. They had come to power in Egypt and in Tunisia and seemed fairly placed to triumph in Syria too. Hamas elected to back what looked like an emergent Muslim Brotherhood power bloc – and drew away from its alliance with Iran.
Not much is left of all that. Egypt and Tunisia are gone. In Syria, only the regime, Islamic State and the Kurds remain as serious players. The Muslim Brotherhood’s moment in the sun was exceedingly brief.
This left their Palestinian iteration, Hamas, looking somewhat beached in 2014. The Iranian funding declined.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi decimated the tunnel system through which the rulers of Gaza brought in goods and money. Fuel shortages and power outages became part of daily life. There was no money to pay state employees.
The Hamas decision to relaunch its military campaign, its refusal to accept Israel’s offer of “calm for calm,” and its rejection of an Egyptian cease-fire proposal that Israel accepted represent an attempt to bring about a “reset” in the position of Hamas and its backers in the region.
Hamas has been looking for allies, so far in vain [Israel]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3184802/posts
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.607178
While Islamic Jihad remains an Iranian protégé, Hamas decided two and a half years ago to break with Iran and return to its natural Arab and Sunni home. This decision was sparked by the Iranian-backed Syrian government’s slaughter of its largely Sunni citizens, which generated pressure to sever ties from both fellow Palestinians and Arab states. But Hamas also thought this move wouldn’t exact too high an economic price, thanks to the support it received from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government.
That calculation collapsed when Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was ousted last year; Egypt’s new government is waging war on the Brotherhood and all its branches, first and foremost Hamas. But Hamas can no longer return to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. Qatar and Turkey remain its only refuge, and both are loathed by Egypt and the Gulf states.
In Gaza war, Egypt taking hard line over border [Israel and Hamas]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3184786/posts
http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-gaza-war-egypt-taking-hard-line-over-border/
Vilification of Hamas in Cairo has only increased since Operation Protective Edge erupted.
CAIRO (AP) — In the Gaza war now in its third bloody week, Hamas’ battle isn’t only with Israel, even though that’s the country it is firing rockets at. The terrorist group that rules Gaza is demanding Egypt open its border with the tiny, blockaded strip of territory
Even as it presents itself as a mediator in the conflict, Egypt is taking a hard line, refusing any opening that would strengthen Hamas, a group it accuses of fueling militancy on its soil.
And so far, the Egyptian public has largely gone along.
But as civilian casualties rise in Gaza, Egypt’s government runs the risk that Egyptians will blame it for not making concessions that could stop the bloodshed.
Still, authorities in Cairo have insisted they won’t bend. Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri called Rafah a “red line,” warning against pressuring Egypt on the issue.
Both Israel and Egypt have enforced a crippling, years-long blockade of Gaza. Israel also faces demands to open its crossings, which are vital to reviving the strip’s economy, but it is likely to resist doing so.
For its part, Egypt has made it clear it won’t open the border unless the Gaza side is run by Hamas’ rival, President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority.
Israel singles out Qatar as key Hamas terror sponsor
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3184241/posts
http://www.timesofisrael.com/as-it-battles-hamas-israel-singles-out-its-sponsor-qatar/
Gulf emirate is branded the villain behind Hamas belligerence, with PM’s former security adviser saying it funds tunnel diggers and rocket launchers.
President Shimon Peres accused Qatar on Wednesday of becoming “the world’s largest funder of terror” due to its financial support for Hamas in Gaza.
“Qatar does not have the right to send money for rockets and tunnels which are fired at innocent civilians,” the outgoing statesman told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Jerusalem. “Their funding of terror must stop. If they want to build then they should, but they must not be allowed to destroy.”
Qatar’s recently attempted to transfer funds for the salaries of Hamas civil servants in Gaza, following the formation of a Palestinian unity government, but was blocked by the United States, which pressured the Arab Bank not to process them. But former national security adviser Maj. Gen. (res) Yaakov Amidror told The Times of Israel that the emirate’s funding for the organization’s terror apparatus, including tunnel diggers and rocket launchers, has continued unabated.
Will that be enough time for Hamas and the PLO to get an adequate supply of new rockets and munitions through the tunnels, Secretary Kerry?
Given the time differential, isn’t the ceasefire over already?
“The Israeli military warned Gaza residents who had been told to evacuate their homes not to return and said ‘activities to locate and neutralize tunnels in the Gaza Strip will continue’.”
It sounds to me like Israel isn’t standing still during this ceasefire, but continuing to identify and destroy the tunnels. To the degree that Hamas honors the ceasefire, it’s giving the Israeli military the opportunity to do their work without being fired upon.
Truce? Time for Hamas to regroup and rearm.
What is Israel’s nomenclature for the W88 device?
5.56mm
Fra-gee-lay, must be Italian.